The study of the pathogenic organisms, Treponema pallidum, which are the organisms responsible for syphilis, has been greatly hampered by the fact that heretofore it has, to all intents and purposes, not been possible to grow and subculture the organisms in vitro while maintaining their virulence. The provision of such a procedure is an important step in developing a vaccine against syphilis in order to avoid antibiotic therapy which, in the case of another venereal disease, gonorrhea, appears to have led to mutant organisms which are resistant to simple antibiotic therapy.
Many attempts have been made heretofore to culture T. pallidum in vitro. The first attempts of record are by Schereschewsky reported in Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift 35, 835 (1909), ibid. 35, 1260 (1909), ibid. 35, 1652 (1909), ibid. 38, 1315 (1912), and Arch. Derm. Syph (Berl). 200, 456 (1955). Other workers have not been able to repeat this work. Noguchi J. Amer. med. Ass. 57, 102 (1911) and J. exp. Med. 15, 90 (1912) reported the in vitro growth of virulent T. Pallidum in a pure culture medium; however, studies of said cultures received from Noguchi by Levaditi and Danulesco (C. R. Soc. Biol. (Paris) 73, 256 (1912)) reported that the Noguchi cultures were avirulent pathogenic contaminates. Other attempts have been made to culture pathogenic treponemes in vitro using ordinary bacteriological media, tissue culture, or egg culture, but none have been reported as being successful.